Podcast „Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“

When sirens wail across Germany on the annual national warning day, many of them come from the Bavarian family business Hörmann.

In 1955, engineer Hans Hörmann founded a two-man office for lightning protection systems in Munich. The company grew rapidly. Sirens were added to the product range, along with underground swimming pools and surveillance systems. Today, Hörmann technology can be found in dairies as well as in the Turin subway or electric charging stations. What began as an engineering office has grown into a technology group employing 2,900 people and generating nearly €680 million in revenue in 2024.

For the past three years, Anna Hörmann, the founder’s daughter, has led the company’s original core business, Hörmann Warnsysteme. On the podcast „Alles Neu…? Aus dem Maschinenraum“, she talks about the early years of the company, setbacks, her entry into the business, and conversations with her 96-year-old father. “I can’t remember ever wanting anything other than to join the family business,” she says in the podcast. “I could see my father’s passion and how much joy he got from shaping and developing the company.”

Johann Schmid-Davis is CFO of the Hörmann Group. He explains how the company benefited from having a broad foundation. “We’ve come through the multiple crises of recent years quite well,” says Schmid-Davis. “If I had listened to bankers and we had focused early on, for example, solely on automotive, I’m not sure things would still be going so well.” Why a CFO sometimes has to be the party pooper is something Schmid-Davis also shares – in the podcast „Alles Neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“ with Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum, and Capital editor Katja Michel.

How can the origin and future of Mittelstand companies be courageously united? What are the challenges facing family businesses and what experiences do they gather in digital transformation? These questions are answered by “Alles neu...? Aus dem Maschinenraum“, the interview podcast for German Mittelstand*. Once a month, Tobias Rappers, Managing Director of Maschinenraum, and Nils Kreimeier, Senior Editor of the business magazine Capital, talk to thought leaders and makers from the heart of the German economy and focus on the personalities and their motivation. *The podcast is in German.

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